It looks like America's growing willingness to roll up its sleeves and get its hands dirty is due to more than the recession, as marketers like the Clorox Co., Church & Dwight, and SC Johnson continue to roll out products that appeal to the moment's perfect trifecta of values: Cleanliness, thriftiness, and transparency. SC Johnson is the latest to up the ante, recently announcing that it will disclose ingredient information over and above federal guidelines -- not just for its new Nature's Source Cleaners, but for brands like Windex and Glade, as well. Nature's Source, like Clorox's Green Works and Church & Dwight's Arm & Hammer's Essential Cleaners, is pitched not at the environmental elite but the grime-fighting masses. Saving the planet is nice, but these people are also looking to save a few cents and make sure they know what the heck they are squirting into their own kitchens. Marketing experts say the surge of interest in green cleaners is just the latest evidence of consumers wanting to be more in control. "Consumers want to do-it-yourself, make-it-yourself, grow-it-yourself and clean-it-yourself these days," says Robin Avni, senior director and consumer strategist for Iconoculture, a Minneapolis-based trend research firm. These greener, more basic cleaning products are part of the same passions that are fueling sales of packets of vegetable seeds, home generators, deep freezers, and canning supplies. "People are saying, 'I don't have control of what's out there - but I do have control over my home.' The banking system has failed us, the stock market has failed us, even the electrical grid is starting to fail us. It's a way people have of saying, 'I don't trust the system.'" In short, we want greater self-reliance, which means getting our hands dirty now and then. We want to clean more, for example: A survey from the Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) says that 60% of Americans say they're doing more cleaning themselves instead of hiring a cleaning service. Another study finds that Americans are playing butcher at home, with the Food Marketing Institute reporting that more than half of shoppers have changed the way they shop for meat during the past year, using strategies such as stocking up on meat during promotions and sales, then divvying it up and freezing it for later use. While it's easy to say the economy is driving all these changes -- 44% of those in the SDA survey say they are also buying less expensive cleaning products, for example - the fact that 22% are making their own cleaning products at home indicates there's more at play. "People are definitely taking the opportunity of the recession to step back and re-evaluate, and they're enjoying this idea of getting back to basics," says Mara Engel, co-founder of Organic Works Marketing, based in New York, which has worked with such brands as Arm & Hammer and Whole Foods Markets. Just as many sectors of the economy have shifted from the indulgent to the practical, so has green marketing. "It used to be seen as an elitist thing, and the assumption was that environmentally friendly or socially responsible products always cost more," she says. But as greener policies have gone mainstream, from Wal-Mart Stores to the White House, which recently said it would plant an organic vegetable garden, marketers are using pitches that are more practical than altruistic. SCJohnson's product line, introduced earlier this year, is "Powerful. Natural. Affordable," while Arm & Hammer's tagline is "Save More. Waste Less." It seems to be working. Even in a down economy, consumers are integrating green values into their lives: In the SDA study, for instance, 61% of consumers say they're looking for cleaning products that are less harmful to the environment, up from 38% in the same survey a year ago. Doubtless, some are making these back-to-basics changes because they can't afford to do anything else. But Avni sees it as an emerging status symbol, as well. "There's this real sense of accomplishment, almost like a merit badge," she says. "Doing more shows we've acquired more expertise and self-reliance."
Any marketers not already in the mobile application space may want to be there within the next five years, when growth of the segment is expected to be four times what it is today. Research firm In-Stat forecasts that more than 100 million app-store compatible mobile phones will be shipping in the next five years. Though the application market took off after Apple's debut of its App Store, other makers -- such as Research in Motion (BlackBerry), Palm OS and Google -- will also become bigger players as they build out their application-selling sites, says David Chamberlain, a principal analyst at In-Stat. Globally, In-Stat forecasts that smartphones that have a strong app-selling feature will account for about 30% of the global smartphone market by 2013, Chamberlain says. In the U.S., the potential for smartphones is even greater; some 30% of people surveyed by In-Stat last year said they intended to make their next phone a smartphone--up from 5% in 2007, Chamberlain says. "There's going to be a big jump [in sales] in the U.S. in the next 12 months," he says. "We're seeing growth in smartphones even as growth is going down for other cell phones." And with all those smartphones will come more traffic at the app stores, where marketers could be primed to take advantage of the space, with things that are not necessarily showy or complicated. Zippo, he notes, has a very simple -- and very popular -- application at Apple's App Store that "doesn't do a thing, except put the name Zippo in people's hands." "It's a terrific level of engagement," Chamberlain says. "This is an area where you can get up close and personal and have measurable engagement with more people." Of course, with increased consumer traffic, increased marketer traffic will likely follow. To stand out, marketers will have to target effectively and create applications that people will either find useful or be worth recommending. "They need to understand the qualities that they're marketing and bring them out front" in applications, Chamberlain says. "Do you need to have something useful to every user? That's not the kind of marketing you're doing here; this is much more individual."
Anyone who has traveled to, say, Calcutta or been forced to use that horrific Texaco station bathroom in Bay St. Louis, Miss., may want to get off Twitter for a second and focus: Charmin--Procter & Gamble's leading toilet tissue brand--is backing a Web site, appropriately named www.SitOrSquat.com. Squat, as in: "If any part of my skin touches this commode, I will cut it off with a paring knife." The Web site is designed to help travelers find the cleanest public restrooms wherever they happen to be on Earth, although one suspects that Norfolk Island or the Weddell Sea may not be listed. "Our goal is to connect Charmin with innovative conversations and solutions as a brand that understands the importance of bringing the best bathroom experience to consumers, even when they're away from home," says Jacques Hagopian, brand manager for Charmin. The SitOrSquat mobile app for iPhone and BlackBerry is essentially a Wiki for recording and accessing bathroom information globally on bathrooms, changing tables, handicapped access and other amenities. According to Charmin, SitOrSquat has over 52,000 toilets in 10 countries worldwide. Since the SitOrSquat service launched, more than 1,600 users have downloaded the application and the SitOrSquat has over 500,000 unique visitors to date. The program aligns with what Charmin has been doing for years: focusing grassroots efforts on the aesthetics of elimination. The company has set up restrooms at events like state fairs, has had annual Charmin Restrooms for the past three years in New York's Times Square and toured the country from 2003 to 2005 with "Potty Palooza," a bathroom on wheels. The SitOrSquat site started as a blog by a New York City woman and is evidently now the largest--perhaps the only--toilet database and locating service "with applications spanning nearly every mobile platform with more to come." Also, per P&G, it's ideal for people with infants, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, "or any other situation requiring immediate access to bathrooms." Travelers know that the "situations" list increases with the distance from one's own refrigerator. "We obviously have branding on their Web site and some branding consumers download the app to their iPhone," says a P&G rep. "We don't have similar arrangements with other Web sites, but when we saw this come up, we jumped; it makes sense for us since we have been in this space of offering clean, accessible restrooms at fairs and other places for years now. So, this was a natural fit for the brand."
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- A digital campaign launched by Nissan for its Rogue was so successful that dealerships were seeing waiting lists for the car -- something they hadn't seen in a while, according to the ad agency behind the effort, which discussed it as a case study at Tuesday's OMMA Global Hollywood conference. The Nissan Rogue campaign hit the ground running with a series of viral videos dubbed "Maze Master," a quirky wooden tilt-board game, and sponsorship of the "Heroes" TV show, said Kristi Vandenbosch, president at Tequila USA. The Rogue campaign took consumers through an online journey that resulted in several viral clips. "Maze Master II" showed a close-up of the game on the front seat of a car. The main driver and backseat driver played the game by making hairpin turns in a Nissan Rogue. The turns caused a marble to traverse the maze and drop into the game's holes. The maze tied into a vision of the car driving down city streets surrounded with skyscrapers. The campaign's results were so successful they even surprised Vandenbosch, she said. In four weeks, the YouTube videos were viewed more than 200,000 times. Both "Maze Master" videos were seen so many times that Yahoo editors placed them on their front page, and later voted them among the top viral videos. The term "2008 Nissan Rogue" ranked No. 7 in search on Yahoo in October. In six weeks, the game had been played more than 335,000 times on NissanUSA.com. "Many car dealerships were starting to see waiting lists to buy the car, which they hadn't seen in quite some time," Vandenbosch said. Nissan and Tequila worked with Electronic Arts to unveil the car in a video game. They also produced a series of episodic videos that were the back story of one of the characters in the game. Six films were distributed on Nissan.com and other channels such as YouTube. Tequila also took the Z car on tour across the country, stopping at car clubs along the way to let them experience the new 370Z for the first time. A deal with Sports Illustrated put the car in the magazine for a pittance. The videos have been seen more than 800,000 times in the last few weeks. Apps for Apple's iPhone also aimed to lure gamers to the car.
Late this month, the youth-focused, anti-smoking program of the American Legacy Foundation, "Truth," will air five video vignettes on MTV that show the dangers of tobacco use and castigate the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. The ads, with an "Infects 2009" theme, extend the foundation's nine-year-old campaign. This is also the first in a series of campaigns this year by the Washington, D.C., organization. The videos are executed with an impromptu feel, complete handheld cameras and twenty-something hosts. They are designed to illustrate the absurdity of various tobacco claims promulgated by cigarette executives. One spot has a pack of 100 people in orange t-shirts invading a grocery store, tearing into bags of gummy bears and pouring them directly into their mouths in a feeding frenzy. One of the hosts lifts a megaphone and tells the amazed shoppers that in 1997, a tobacco executive said cigarettes are addictive -- like gummy bears." In another, 10 people dressed in orange Hazmat suits surround restaurant-goers who are about to eat some freshly ground pepper as a mob rushes through the restaurant screaming at the sight of the pepper. In the swarm, one of the Hazmat crewmembers grabs the pepper mill. After the mob leaves and the restaurant begins to quiet down, the host -- using a bullhorn -- says "in 1996, one tobacco company claimed that secondhand smoke might be even less risky than eating pepper frequently. Secondhand smoke kills about 50,000 Americans a year. Still waiting on the number of people pepper killed last year." The videos will be on -- and are designed to complement -- new MTV shows like "Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory," "Nitro Circus," "Made," "Bully Beatdown" and "TI's Road to Redemption." Past Truth/MTV efforts include "Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island," where 20 former contestants from MTV's "The Real World" and "Road Rules" fought for their own survival and a share of $300,000. Nicole Dorrler, senior director of marketing at Truth, says the new program with MTV, which runs through May, precedes a new multimedia campaign set for June. "A lot of our strategy here is not just with MTV--it's really to find content relevant to that audience." She says that upcoming efforts include summer partnerships around music and emerging bands, including sponsorship of the Vans Warped Tour, with which Truth has been involved for nine years; and programs with Fuel and Fuse networks. The June campaign will be, per Dorrler, "an anti-industry, anti-manipulation method, using facts like 'every 6.5 seconds someone dies from tobacco-related disease'." She says the group's marketing budget -- this year between $20 million and $30 million -- is less than what the tobacco industry spends in a day. Per the foundation, 3,900 young people ages 12 to 17 try a cigarette for the first time every day.
On the heels of a Nielsen IAG study urging financial institutions to advertise more to build consumer confidence, Thomas Riehle, managing partner with D.C.-based polling firm RT Strategies, told Marketing Daily that financial companies must not only do more advertising and public relations, but must also address the issues that are currently on consumers' minds. "You have a moment when people want to hear from you," he said of the financial firms--but most consumers "are not hearing anything.... The one group of people that has everyone's attention is not using the opportunity." Riehle's firm, in conjunction with communications agency Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, just polled 1,000 U.S. adults and found that 38% of them had received no direct communications from the industry; 44% had heard something from the industry but then felt more negative about it; and just 11% had heard from the industry and then felt more positive. That last figure, according to the study, suggests that "authentic and credible communication ... positively influences widely held opinions about the industry overall." A similar conclusion was reached recently by Boston Consulting Group, which found that financial services providers could diminish defections simply by communicating honestly with their customers. Yet, Riehle noted, consumers have largely been hearing from financial services firms through "product advertising as if there is no crisis going on, or media coverage when you're on the defensive." But what consumers really want, he said, are straight answers to two questions: "What were you thinking? How are we getting out of this?" Since they are not getting those answers from the industry, the public has largely put its faith in government. The RT/Waggener poll found that 69% of Americans believe President Obama is doing more to address the current financial system than banks and the financial services industry (12%); 57% credit Congressional Democrats with doing more, versus 18% for the industry; and Congressional Republicans also beat the industry, 39% to 25%. These results, combined with a "crisis in confidence in the leaders of banks and financial services companies," means "very bad news for the financial sector going forward," Riehle said. Indeed, in 25 years of polling about industries of all kinds, Riehle said, he has never seen scores as low as the 4 to 1 negatives received by the financial services firms. Even "run-of-the mill corporations" that spend money on advertising and PR usually get 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 positive scores from consumers, he said. Only 8% of the poll respondents expressed full confidence in banks and financial services companies--a steep fall from the 31% who reported full confidence in a 2006 study by the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Riehle's suggestion for the industry? The largest companies, he said, should quickly put together a white paper detailing "what we've done in the past few years, and what we're doing to get out of it." "People are waiting to hear from them," he said. "A big part of the problem is just silence." And the wrong kind of communication can hurt. Riehle should know. He just received a postcard from the AIG Private Client Group declaring: "We Know Risk." James Gregory, CEO of CoreBrand, notes that even "the best campaigns cannot overcome bad business decisions or poor management." According to CoreBrand, a brand crisis occurs when the brand's consumer favorability declines quickly and significantly at the same time that the brand's familiarity increases. Thus, AIG has become a "brand crisis defined." "The AIG brand name is done," declares Riehle. Yet other brands--particularly banks--may still have plenty of life left in them. For example, the consumers polled by RT and Waggener were found to be split down the middle over what banks are doing with the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds received from the federal government: • 28% said the banks are using TARP funds to make consumer loans • 27% thought the banks were holding the funds in reserve • 23% said the banks are using the funds to make business loans 21% thought the banks were using the funds to pay salaries and bonuses for their executives. "Despite the overwhelmingly negative media coverage of the industry in the past few weeks, it was surprising to see that consumers still express a fairly balanced view of the industry and even acknowledge some of its recent positive contributions to economic recovery," said Torod Neptune, senior vice president and global public affairs practice leader of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, in a statement. "Clearly there lies a huge opportunity for financial services leaders to step forward in the midst of this storm -- but they need to proactively communicate."
The store, as a medium, represents a complex environment - an ecosystem, if you will, laced with competition, cooperation and evolution. And like many ecosystems, the store is evolving rapidly. Taking an ecological approach to the store as a medium is extremely useful. Consider: there are thousands of elements - i.e., products, navigational signage, format, layout, departments, aisles, shelf organization, displays, digital signage, interactive kiosks, etc. - all sharing the same habitat. In short, there are hundreds of communications vying for the shopper's attention. The Shopper = The Audience The shopper is the audience for the retail medium. And she (or he), prompted by the recession, has been altering her behavior lately - consolidating shopping trips, more carefully planning stock-up trips, and shifting to value retailers. Moreover, research from TNS Retail Forward's ShopperScape Panel suggests, for example, that Wal-Mart has been experiencing growth in upper-income shoppers. So both the shopping dynamics and shopper composition are changing for many retailers. The shopper's goals, her role, and the kinds of information she is likely to be receptive to, vary greatly by the type of shopping trip. If she is making a quick, fill-in trip to get things for dinner, she's a very focused shopper, but open to meal solutions. During a stock-up trip, she's a shopper making many purchases (usually as many as 20 or more); therefore, she has a great many things to focus on. Also, during the course of a stock-up trip, the shopper may take on a number of different roles. Picture her as value guru and global citizen, and perhaps more of an investor when shopping for laundry and household cleaning supplies. But when shopping for food, she is more focused on what her family will eat, what's nutritional, what's affordable. Or she may be playing the role of heroine, looking for the right treat for her children, who just passed their math tests with flying colors. Today's shoppers exhibit different levels of involvement throughout the store, different balances of needs and wants, different views of value, etc. Indeed, tied to all of the re-evaluations taking place as a result of the recession, shoppers have reclassified categories or parts of the store - e.g., from "need" to "non-essential" item. And from much of the work of Herb Sorensen's TNS, we know that shoppers behave differently in different parts of the store, shopping more quickly near the end of their trip, for example. This behavior also has an impact on the ways she can and wants to be communicated with. The Store = The Medium The store represents another layer in our ecosystem analysis. Retailers are trying to establish their own brand and create a unique shopping experience for their shoppers. In reality today, in-store communications can vary across stores, even for the same brand, depending on the nature of the shopping experience the retailer is trying to create. Safeway's Life Stores and "Ingredients for Life" campaigns are driven by such diverse elements as store layout, ambience, category organization, or store brands (i.e., O for Organics or Eating Right). Wal-Mart's "Save more, live better" shapes the store as well as the way in which communications can be delivered in the store. Most retailers today have developed detailed specifications for in-store communications. Merchandising, signage and display guides and guidelines are well established among the major stores. Many have gone a step further and developed their own media vehicles (e.g., Target's Red Channel, Wal-Mart's Smart Network, Kroger's dunnhumby shopper program, etc.) which are often the preferred vehicles because they are very consistent with what the retailer is trying to achieve in-store. Increasingly (especially during the current recession as so many try to position themselves as a value destination), retailers are taking control of their stores with these very well-defined specifications, limitations, and preferences. Their brands serve as a filter or a voice ... through which marketers must learn to work. The Message = The Content Finally, the in-store content or messages themselves are also changing. Right now, for example, the way in which retailers are talking about value is undergoing a radical makeover as they try to establish themselves as value destinations. Compared to the period just prior to the recession, price and private labels are getting much, much more attention. As are new ways of expressing value (e.g., Wal-Mart's "Gametime" with its focus on at-home socialization and entertainment, or Target's "New Movie Night," or Walgreens' "Affordable Essentials" campaign). One last area where retailers are increasingly focusing their efforts is multi-channel. As retailers begin to realize the impact of online (e.g., Forrester estimates 24% of offline sales are driven by online; site-to-store produces incremental sales at the time of pick-up; and Wal-Mart has seen a correlation between online customer product ratings and sales, etc.), major retailers are working to ensure the online-offline experience is a consistent manifestation of their brand. Evolving environment The store is arguably one of the most complex media. As marketers develop their plans, it is vitally important to understand how the retail medium is evolving in order to better leverage it. The ability to reach shoppers at the right point in the shopping trip, with the right message, provides a powerful means for influencing purchase decisions ... which, thanks to our harrowing economy, promise to be more carefully determined and better managed and than ever before.